


an angel without wings

by jjxneus



Category: ONEWE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Coffee Shops, Comfort, Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fallen Angels, Flying, Nightmares, Scars, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25933525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjxneus/pseuds/jjxneus
Summary: Giwook is an angel fallen to Earth. He likes to think he’s coping well but there are always little things that remind him of how homesick he really feels.
Relationships: Lee Giwook | Cya/Son Dongmyeong
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	an angel without wings

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [Giwook's song of the same title!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja_kGMPDreQ)

There are fingers on his back, tracing along the scars that run in crooked but parallel lines on either side of his spine. He’s not alright; he can’t stand it. Giwook hums and slips his shirt on. The fingers leave and Dongmyeong doesn’t ask questions. He’s grateful for that; he’s not sure how he would respond. He lets a small smile spread across his face and stands up. The sunlight streams in through the window and the golden rays, too warm and familiar like the clouds with them, make his heart ache. 

===

He wanders down the street aimlessly alongside pigeons that weave in between everyone’s legs. It’s a nice day out, he notes as he keeps walking. He could buy food, perhaps grab some new guitar picks, maybe browse for some new clothes. He does none of those things, content to just daydream about ‘what if’s and other hypothetical situations that will never occur. 

Giwook stops as he reaches the park, footsteps slowing and growing almost sluggish as he approaches a particularly large tree. He pretends not to notice the way the flowers stand a little taller and lean in his direction as he walks on the grass. But he smiles as he reaches a hand out once he’s close enough to the tree, placing his palm against the bark and huffing out a little laugh of delight as a faint golden glow emanates from deep within the trunk. He lets himself notice the way the leaves become a little greener, a little more vibrant and alive, until he removes his hand. 

He takes his seat by the roots, patting them gently as they begin to tear themselves up from the ground centimetre by centimetre in an attempt to reach him. They sink back down as he makes contact with them, but he appreciates the motion nonetheless. He sighs and leans back, shifting his shoulders so he isn’t resting against his scars. His gaze falls on a building in the distance. It stretches up, towers above all the others, all large glass windows and tinted blue glow. He follows it up, eyes climbing floor by floor until he can’t anymore. It reaches up for the sky, going past the clouds and up far too high for Giwook to follow. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have been any problem for him at all to take his own path back up. 

A pigeon stops about a metre away and turns to stare at him. He feels it before he sees it, stunning him out of his daydreams. Giwook holds his breath but no one else seems to notice as the bird’s feathers fade into an inky black. It keeps staring at him, eyes glowing a brilliant silver that sends chills down his spine, right between his scars. He knows what this means and his smile wavers as he nods in understanding. He will never ascend again. 

The black bird flies off, up and through the clouds. 

===

There are fingers on his back again but something is wrong.  _ This _ is wrong, his head screams at him, wrong, wrong, wrong. There’s a sharp pain and he’s falling faster and faster. His eyes are closed but he can’t open them, a scream is stuck in his throat as all he can do is fall and wait. He’s twisting and turning in the air, he can feel soft feathers against his arms as they fall slower than him, and he feels like he’s disintegrating. His back is burning. 

And he wakes up face down in his bed, cheek pressed to his pillow and his knuckles white around fistfuls of blanket. One of his eyes snaps open and someone yells, leaps back away from him as he stares without seeing. Warm light fades from his vision until he’s thrown into the darkness of the room and remembers where he is - the dorm, his bed, he’s safe. Dongmyeong, it was Dongmyeong who had yelled. Giwook sits up as best as he can and rubs his eyes. When he next opens them, Dongmyeong looks much less afraid, much less startled. 

“Are you okay?” 

Is he? Will he ever be? 

Will he ever not be plagued by the same nightmares composed of twisted memories? Memories of falling forever and a sharp pain at his back as he goes tumbling down past the clouds. 

He nods, thanks Dongmyeong for the concern, reassures him that yes, he really is fine, sorry to have woken you up. He manages a smile too, it’s weak but it’s there. Dongmyeong won’t stop staring at his eyes even as he silently hands him one of his BMO plushies that had gotten knocked off the bed. Somehow, his gaze is comforting to Giwook; it grounds him in the present. But there’s a hint of confusion, or perhaps wariness, in Dongmyeong’s expression that Giwook is too exhausted to think about. 

He doesn’t realise his eyes were golden when he’d first opened them. 

===

Giwook sits down at the table with a sigh, fingers tapping out a rhythm against his cup. He’ll have to head to his studio later and capture this beat before it escapes him. But for now he relaxes against the window as the rest of the group joins him with their drinks. Harin mimes something and they all laugh. Yonghoon tells an awful dad joke and is met with a chorus of groans and sighs. Normally they would return to their dorm but it’s a lovely day and they have no schedules to attend to. They can simply exist as friends first, and a band second. 

He rests his head further against the window, pressing his face into the glass and eyes fluttering closed as he smiles happily from the warmth of the sun shining directly on him. He hears the click of a camera shutter but doesn’t bother opening his eyes to see who it’s from or to tell them to delete the photo - he knows he’s cute. He lets himself bask in the warm glow, the comfort of it reminding him of a place he knows he’ll never return to, and never forget. But then Yonghoon says something that has him going cold. 

“It looks like you have a halo.” 

Giwook opens his eyes slowly. Yonghoon isn’t looking at him, he’s looking over Hyungu’s shoulder at the photo he’d taken. Harin and Dongmyeong crane their necks to get a look too, but Giwook stays still. 

“Ahh, our Giwookie really is an angel.” 

He doesn’t want to see. 

He has no choice in the matter because the next thing he knows, they’re showing him anyway and he sees it clearer than they do. The light has fallen on him in such a way that he looks backlit, like he’s glowing with ethereal radiance. His hair, curled and dyed in shades of purple and blue, appears to have a ring of gold circling above it. The sunlight is at such an angle that the glowing ring is captured perfectly by Hyungu’s camera skills. He knows he sees it better than the others. He can make out the intricate details in the light, the curls and spikes in the design of the ring that he still has memorised. 

“That’s a cool light trick.” He’s faintly aware of one of the others saying. 

But he knows it’s just that - a trick of the light. There is no ring of celestial light crowning his head anymore; there hasn’t been for a long time. 

He refocuses on the present when Dongmyeong calls his name with a curious look on his face. 

“Hey, you zoned out. Were you thinking of your old home in Heaven?” 

They all laugh, but Giwook’s laugh is as empty and broken as his halo. 

===

He’d like to think the vlive is going well. He waves his fingers for the camera, showing off his drying nail polish as the others talk (bicker) around him. He stretches his neck to get a look at the phone screen beside him on the table, watching the comments go by. As he moves his head though, he catches a glimpse of something soft and white in his hair and his words get stuck in his throat. He turns his head back the other way, hoping no one else saw it. 

That night he stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. He thought he had stopped growing them by now but there’s no mistaking what it is. His fingers, adorned with bright colours, sweep his hair aside and a beautiful feather greets him. White fading into gold at the tip. He pulls it out with ease, completely painless, and it sits in his hand for a long moment. A tingle goes down his spine so quickly he almost misses the feeling. 

He checks the rest of his hair carefully, combing through it with his fingers as his breathing becomes more erratic. There’s nothing; there’s no other feathers. He hates that he’s disappointed. This could have been a sign there was still hope for him, but of course there isn’t. 

===

_ There’s a beautiful feeling of pure joy that rushes through him as he falls with his wings spread.  _

_ They carry him up, high above the clouds.  _

_ The wind through his feathers, the glow of the sunset against his face.  _

_ He’s free, he’s soaring, he’s turning through the air with alarming speed and adrenaline running through him.  _

_ And this is only his first flight.  _

_ Giwook flies until his wings grow tired and then he touches back down as the moon begins to rise. He sits on the roof and wraps his wings around his body like a blanket, his fingers combing through the feathers carefully. As he snaps his head back up to watch the moon, his vision is obscured by a pure white feather that flops over his eye with his hair. He brushes it aside but then freezes.  _

_ A feather.  _

_ Soft and real.  _

_ He gently plucks it from his hair, feeling nothing as it comes out easily and sits in his palm. It’s fairly small, and fluffier than the ones that make up his wings. The first of many, he knows, that he can proudly show off as he grows up.  _

_ He wonders what the world is like beneath the clouds. He dreams of what it must be like, what the sky looks like from down there, what it would be like to let himself drop beneath the cloudy shield and glide above the humans. He would be invisible, of course, he wouldn’t be there to stay.  _

_ Angels like him belong in Heaven, after all. _

===

He lets his legs dangle off the edge of the rooftop, swinging them back and forth as if he was walking on air, as if he could drop and he would have brilliant wings to carry him back up. What he gets instead is a throb of pain in his back. 

He wonders what the world is like above the clouds. How much has changed since he fell? 

The roof is empty, quiet, illuminated by the flames of the sunset. 

He stays there for hours until the sky turns black and stars twinkle into view one by one. He doesn’t remember when he stopped swinging his legs, but he hugs them to his chest now. He has no wings to wrap around himself. No soft feathers to envelop him and comfort how homesick he feels. 

He’s cold, so cold, inside and out. He wants to cry but the tears won’t come. There is only a quiet, sinking feeling in his chest that numbs his entire body. Hollow. He feels hollow. It’s not a foreign sensation to him anymore. 

Then a blanket is dropped on his shoulders. 

Dongmyeong’s hands wrap the blanket tightly around him. It’s thick and heavy, warm and soft, if he concentrates hard enough he can pretend it’s his wings. Giwook blinks slowly at Dongmyeong as the latter sits down beside him, gaze on the sky. 

“Had a feeling I’d find you up here.” 

Giwook just hums. 

“We’re all worried, you know.” Dongmyeong continues, his voice still light as if he isn’t about to say something that Giwook knows will hit him straight in his heart. 

There’s a pause, a moment of silence that falls between them where they simply sit there in each other’s presence. There’s a sweet scent that makes its way over although Giwook can’t tell where it comes from and he isn’t even sure whether he actually smells it or if it’s just his memories playing tricks on him again. 

“I know it isn’t easy.” Dongmyeong whispers so softly that Giwook almost doesn’t catch it. “It’s hard to let go.” 

Not for the first time, he wonders if Dongmyeong knows more than he lets on. 

“You aren’t your past.” 

Giwook’s breath catches in his throat and he turns his head stiffly to face Dongmyeong. He tugs the blanket closer to his body, tighter around him, trying to resist curling in on himself. Dongmyeong holds his hand out towards Giwook who grips it with trembling fingers. He shuffles himself closer to the bassist until they’re pressed up against each other, separated only by the blanket. 

“We’re here for you, we’re your family.” 

For the first time in a long while, since he fell to Earth, Giwook finds himself feeling less homesick. 

===

It’s his birthday and despite the tide of bittersweet memories threatening to rise up and overflow, he feels like he’s floating. Well, he feels immense concern for Yonghoon who has been going through an upset stomach all day, but he mostly feels like he’s floating. He spoons bits of cake into his mouth as politely as he can, knowing they’re live in front of hundreds of their fans. 

But his heart feels light, weightless, embraced by the love that surrounds him. Homesickness pushes and pulls at his mind like rough waves as he holds on for dear life, but his bandmates - his  _ family _ \- around him are his anchor. They keep him held close and he finds that he doesn’t mind the feeling of being grounded as much as he used to.

The discomfort is still there, the ache in his back and the chill in his fingers where they used to glow, but there’s an acceptance that has begun to flow through him. He is an angel without wings, without a halo. But he is still himself and that, he knows, is what matters. 

He isn’t his past. 

He grins, suddenly overwhelmed by the small party around him. This is his family, this could be his home. 

===

Giwook wakes up. 

There are fingers on his back, tracing along the scars that run in crooked but parallel lines on either side of his spine. He’s not alright but it’s okay; perhaps, in time, he will be. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't always have the energy to respond to them but I do read every single comment! They really make my day ♡
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/jjxneus) ♡ [cc](https://curiouscat.me/jjxneus)


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